Eric Butterworth Speaks: Essays on Abundant Living #75
Delivered by Eric Butterworth on September 12, 1975
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We are not in this lesson going to examine examples of psychic phenomena, a controversial field, although certainly some healing takes place in ways beyond the accepted medical frame of reference. “Para” means beyond, around, in addition to; it is closely related to the “meta” in metaphysics. Para-normal healing refers to all kinds of healing brought about’ by ‘unusual means, in other words by means other than normal cell-renewal or by medication or surgery. It must here be acknowledged that medical history abounds with unexplained reversals of so-called incurable conditions. Even in so-called normal healing processes, abnormal results sometimes manifest themselves. Use of the word normal presents difficulties—what is normal to one person may not be to a person from another place or another time or another situation or another upbringing.
In my book, Discover the Power Within You, I referred to a pamphlet distributed at the Shrine of Lourdes which reflects an orthodox belief that sickness is the will of God. As a matter of fact, this was a widespread belief in the early church. Thus did the church itself stand in the way of the attempt to understand and treat physical disorders and to reinforce the healing process. Healing endeavors had to grow up as another one of the sciences, quite apart from any spiritual base or religious support.
There has in recent years been a veritable explosion of various types of so-called para-normal healing. Much of this has simply been the return of the church to the Gospel idea of healing through prayer, in some cased followed by the ancient practice of laying on of hands. There has likewise been a trend toward psychic healing. Dr. Bernard Grad of the University of Montreal has done some interesting laboratory research, using mice and humans, relating to the laying on of hands, and has proved the existence of an unexplained, para-normal force. There are a number of evangelical healers, such as Katherine Kulhman, whose ministry has unquestionably helped many of the ailing. It is this kind of obviously successful manifestation that we term para-normal.
Edgar Cayce, one of the most famous psychics of our times, made impressive and correct medical diagnoses while in trance. The implication of his readings is that he sensed the healing process that is constantly working to compensate for and to overcome physical blockages and hindrances. Who has not observed a natural, innate guidance in animals, for instance, when a dog or cat will go off by himself and eat grass to prompt regurgitation, then quietly curl up to let healing take place.
The ancient Chinese practice of acupuncture has attracted much attention lately, and the Russians, who are apt to be respectful and willing to try new methods, are perhaps ahead of Americans in putting it to use. Many doctors acknowledge that it works, but they do not exactly know how or why. Some reject it altogether, but most are coming to agree that it should be taken seriously. Acupuncture is based on the theory that a vital energy circulates through the body on specific, non-tangible pathways, and that it can be tapped or interrupted on any one of seven-hundred points on the skin surface, these points having been located, diagrammed, and recorded many thousands of years ago. Inserting fine needles at the proper points and keeping the needles in a twirling motion corrects imbalances in the energy flow and apparently cures disorders and when needed blocks the sensation known as pain, so that the physician can take his own measures toward a cure or correction. It is especially interesting that in some para-normal manner, acupuncturists are able to see disease ahead of time. In Chinese medicine there is the aphorism: “The superior physician cures before the illness is manifest; the inferior physician can only care for the illness which he was unable to prevent.”
In the teaching of Yoga there is this same concept of vital energy, called prana which is said to flow through the system and which, it is held, can be directed by thought; much of the practice of Yoga consists in directing this force. The Menninger Foundation’s Elmer Green has done extensive research into the voluntary control of internal states. This is commonly known as biofeedback, and it indicates the power inherent with a person actually to still the nervous system and to bring balance to the body, after which most conditions heal themselves.
We must realize that in examining para-normal healing we must remember that the mere physical body does not constitute the whole man. You are far more than just your body, which simply serves as a means of self-expression. The you that is more than your body encompasses the pattern and the plan, the potential for health and renewal. We have this going for us, and no matter how we evoke it, this healing force is always there, waiting to be brought out, whether by the laying on of hands or acupuncture or bio-feedback or just by the metaphysical treatment of knowing the truth. This healing process is an actual, fundamental element, always present in a non-material sense. Edmund Sinnott writes: “Somehow there must be present in a plant’s living stuff, immanent in all its parts, something that represents the natural configuration of the whole as a norm to which its growth conforms, the goal toward which development is invariably directed.”
Everywhere in biology we are confronted with this insistent concept, and it is obvious to me that it is the reason why healing, whether para-normal or otherwise, becomes possible. Man is so oriented to the exterior that he automatically assumes healing must come from the outside, and there is little question that healings are at least partially effected thus. The danger lies in, having been helped toward healing by the doctor, psychic, or whatever, that we shun the awareness of our own oneness with the infinite process.
Charles Fillmore teaches that real health is from within and does not have to be superimposed from the without; it is the normal condition of man, a condition true to the reality of his being. Life is a growth-process, and regardless of what we experience, there is ever a need for growth. We need not only to go through the condition, we need to grow through the condition. After we have alleviated the pain of a headache, we need to come to understand the message of the pain and deal with that problem, or there is the likelihood that the headache will return. Attempts at healing need to encompass inward searching coupled with outer efforts. Health and sickness are not opposites, they are only varying degrees of the manifestation of life. In spiritual healing, we are not dealing with the eradication of sickness as a force, fighting off destructive elements of the physical, rather we are concerned with accepting and expressing the pure and perfect life of God. Grasp the idea of wholeness in consciousness, thus change the belief in sickness and the attitudes of limitation that led to the condition in the first place.
Someone will exclaim, “If only I were worthy of the healing that I desire and need.” But you see, worthiness is not something to be earned, it is something to be accepted. God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. You are a spiritual being, but you must know it. When you know it, then you come to accept your worth-ship; thus worthy, the healing process can flow. God is Spirit, Breath, Essence, the One. To worship God means knowing that you are worthy because you are a spiritual being and thus can be healed because you are a whole creature. Your wholeness is of a divine pattern, the natural design of the whole that is configured within every person, the allness that is present despite the illness. This lies in back of all healing, para-normal or otherwise. In our Unity approach we try to know the Truth, to understand the spiritual process, and by consciousness rather than by phenomena seek to demonstrate, manifest, and unfold wholeness and health.
© 1975, by Eric Butterworth
